by Dan Moren

November 23, 2020 10:32 AM PT

Comcast to enforce data caps across US, starting in early 2021

Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin:

Comcast’s 1.2TB monthly data cap is coming to 12 more states and the District of Columbia starting January 2021. The unpopular policy was already enforced in most of Comcast’s 39-state US territory over the past few years, and the upcoming expansion will for the first time bring the cap to every market in Comcast’s territory.

As a Comcast subscriber in a state that hasn’t previously been subject to data caps, this is disappointing. I’ve ridden close to that 1.2TB limit a couple times in the last six months, though I haven’t surpassed it yet.

But there are several arguments against this move, as Brodkin points out. One, of course, being that we’re in the middle of a pandemic where people are increasingly relying on their home internet connections for tasks like video conferencing at work and with families, as well as just keeping themselves entertained in a time where options to do so are often limited.

Second is, as some smaller ISPs have discovered, a lack of data caps doesn’t actually adversely impact service:

One small ISP in Maryland, Antietam Broadband, decided to permanently remove data caps after finding that increased usage during the pandemic didn’t harm the network. Antietam also said that customers working at home switched to “broadband packages that more accurately reflected their broadband needs.” As Antietam’s experience shows, heavy Internet users often pay for faster speeds, ensuring that ISPs get more revenue from heavy users even when there’s no data cap.

The long and short of is that data caps are about enforcing artificial scarcity. Data, unlike, say, natural gas or electricity, does not actually carry costs that scale along with quantity. Which Comcast itself has admitted:

When Comcast was enforcing a 300GB monthly cap in 2015, a Comcast engineering executive said imposing the monthly data limit was a business decision, not one driven by technical necessity.

Thirdly, Comcast’s own tools for measuring data usage are imprecise at times, leading to unfair charges.

Add this all up and it sure looks like profiteering, especially during the era of COVID-19.

If there is a bright side to all of this, however, it’s that the incoming administration is far more likely to take a hard look at these practices, and to actually take action against them via regulatory agencies like the FCC. But such a process will probably be slow and carries no guarantees.

Frankly, this wouldn’t be such a bad situation if the ISP market was actually competitive, but in many—if not most—markets around the country, options are pretty limited. My city actually has two competing cable companies, but many of the cities and towns surrounding us only have a single option for fast internet.¹ Virtual monopolies have been propped up by governments around the company, and as long as the government is looking into big tech, it should probably be leveling some scrutiny on big ISPs like Comcast too.

by Jason Snell

November 20, 2020 4:15 PM PT

Joz, Federighi, and Srouji talk M1

Samuel Axon has a really nice interview with three Apple execs about the M1 processor. Here’s Craig Federighi:

The M1 is essentially a superset, if you want to think of it relative to A14. Because as we set out to build a Mac chip, there were many differences from what we otherwise would have had in a corresponding, say, A14X or something.

Worth reading.

by Dan Moren

November 18, 2020 6:08 AM PT

Apple reduces App Store cut to 15 percent for small businesses

Apple Newsroom:

The new App Store Small Business Program will benefit the vast majority of developers who sell digital goods and services on the store, providing them with a reduced commission on paid apps and in-app purchases. Developers can qualify for the program and a reduced, 15 percent commission if they earned up to $1 million in proceeds during the previous calendar year.

The company promises full details next month, but right now, it seems as though the program mainly does what the headline says: developers earning less than $1 million in proceeds (after Apple takes its cut) will see the commission they pay to Apple reduced to 15 percent, instead of the usual 30 percent.¹ The program launches as of January 1, 2021.

There are a few other factors mentioned in Apple’s post: for example, developers new to the App Store can qualify for the program (thus, new companies that don’t have a year’s worth of revenue yet would probably qualify, but some existing giant company that walks in the door with its own app would probably still pay 30 percent). And, unsurprisingly, it’s easier to end up in the higher bracket than get out of it: if developers pass the $1 million mark during the year, they’ll have to pay 30 percent on any revenue over that amount for the rest of the year; but if a developer drops below $1 million, they have to requalify for the 15 percent cut the next year.

This seems, on the whole, to be a positive move. Apple previously cut its commission to 15 percent for subscriptions after the first year of a subscriber’s tenure, but this is the first blanket change of the App Store commission in its existence. Of course, it comes amidst not only frustration from developers with the strictures of the store, but also a high profile battle with Fortnite developer Epic, as well as increased scrutiny from the government and regulators.

Obviously, this isn’t a panacea for complaints with the App Store: the review process remains murky and capricious², in-app purchase continues to be a battleground, and, perhaps most relevant for the antitrust regulators looking into matters, Apple’s App Store is still the only way to legitimately install software on iOS. But Apple is clearly counting on the fact that leaving more money in the hands of many of the companies that are often its most enthusiastic partners and its most vocal critics may go a ways to smoothing over some of those other concerns. We’ll keep an eye out for more details on the plan next month.

by Dan Moren

November 17, 2020 6:41 AM PT

Putting the M1 chip to the test

Reviews of the M1-powered Macs are starting to filter out across the web, including our own, which you should definitely read, but if you’re looking for a more nuts and bolts look at the M1 chip powering those new Macs, Ars Technica’s Jim Salter has a good overview:

Although it’s extremely difficult to get accurate Apples-to-non-Apples benchmarks on this new architecture, I feel confident in saying that this truly is a world-leading design—you can get faster raw CPU performance, but only on power-is-no-object desktop or server CPUs. Similarly, you can beat the M1’s GPU with high-end Nvidia or Radeon desktop cards—but only at a massive disparity in power, physical size, and heat.

The piece gets a bit technical, and as Salter admits, the results are somewhat hampered by the small number of benchmarking suites available on the platform, but it does seem to largely bear out Apple’s claims, as other reviews corroborate.

by Dan Moren

November 16, 2020 6:52 AM PT

In wake of server outage, new Apple support doc details Gatekeeper privacy

A new document on Apple’s support site details information about its Gatekeeper system the week after a server outage caused many Mac users systems to encounter issues. In particular, it responds to suggestions that the company is collecting users’ information via this system:

Gatekeeper performs online checks to verify if an app contains known malware and whether the developer’s signing certificate is revoked. We have never combined data from these checks with information about Apple users or their devices. We do not use data from these checks to learn what individual users are launching or running on their devices.

The outage in question, which saw some users unable to launch apps or experience interruptions to their work, spawned a few different concerns, such as the existence of a single point of failure for Macs, as well as privacy concerns over what information was being transmitted back to Apple as part of the system. In the document, Apple says Apple IDs and device IDs were never logged as part of Gatekeeper, but that IP addresses were; going forward, the company will no longer log IP addresses and will remove any that it has collected in the past.

Apple’s also promising new features to further enhance the privacy of Gatekeeper, including replacing the certificate check with a new encrypted system, better server resilience, and a preference that lets users turn off these protections.

The last is particularly notable, given the company’s touting of privacy as one of its central tenets in recent years. If Apple is giving users the option to keep this data private at the expense of security, it certainly indicates a seriousness about privacy that backs up the claims the company makes.